


Burn

by onetrueobligation



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Songfic, Sort Of, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 13:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetrueobligation/pseuds/onetrueobligation
Summary: "I'm re-reading the letters you wrote to me."After the scandal, Natasha burns Anatole's letters. An in-depth analysis of Natasha's feelings on the events of the latter part of Act Two.A/N: I don't know much about Hamilton but I really like 'Burn' (and of course, it's Pippa Soo). Also, the first part is more based on the 2016 TV miniseries than the book or musical.





	Burn

When Pierre informed her that Anatole had left Moscow, she was devastated.

‘Was it your doing?’

There was such hatred in her tone that Pierre could not bring himself to respond.

‘I will go to him,’ she snarled, rising from her chair shakily. She coughed and had to turn away, before the steeliness of her glare returned. ‘I will find him, and we will be married.’

Pierre gazed at her sorrowfully for a moment. Why should he be the one to have to tell her?

‘Natasha… it could never be. He is already married.’

She made a squeaking noise in the back of her throat as the tears began to run down her face again. ‘No…’ she choked, and sank back into the chair. ‘No, I- I don’t believe you. It… it can’t be. I…’

But of course it was true. Sonya had known. Dear Sonya had told her there was something unnatural in Anatole’s secrecy, but she’d been too stupid to listen. And now…

Pierre had never known how to comfort a crying woman. But this was _her_ , and he’d be damned if he did nothing. So he wrapped his arms around her awkwardly (she was still seated) and let her cry into his shoulder. Eventually she stopped crying and merely continued to squeak. Pierre now had no idea how to react, so he merely squeezed her hand, said, ‘If you ever need to open your heart to someone, think of me,’ and then left.

_One day I will tell her,_ he promised himself. And at the very thought, his heart seemed to burn.

 

She sat in the drawing room for a long time. No one disturbed her. She didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She merely stared at the wall. Only when the sun began to set did she leave. Marya Dmitrievna was standing by the door. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again immediately.

Sonya ran to her side and clutched her hand. ‘Natasha, I’m so glad you’ve come to your senses. Please, come sit with me. We can… talk, we can eat supper.’

Sonya had missed her friend.

But when she turned, Sonya saw no familiarity in her eyes. She saw an emptiness, a plainness, as though there was no life in her anymore. She looked at Sonya as one looks at a wall.

‘I will be in my room,’ she said coldly, and turned.

Sonya’s smile faded as she felt the tears rush to her eyes. She fled from the room and ran to Marya Dmitrievna, who hushed her quickly.

And so Sonya wept alone, and the hot tears made her eyes burn.

 

Once in her room, she pulled open her bedside drawer and withdrew the letters from Anatole. She wept again as she examined the very first.

_Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, I must love you or die…_

She read the letter thirty times, forty times, but suddenly the words seemed empty and hollow. From the moment she’d read them, she’d thought Anatole was hers. The palaces and cathedrals built with the paragraphs he’d constructed had left her defenceless. That first letter had sealed her love for him.

But now the words seemed unfamiliar. She couldn’t imagine them coming from Anatole’s quill. She couldn’t imagine him saying them. The words didn’t sound like him at all. There was no passion, no love, only lies.

But the first time she’d read it, the world seemed to burn.

 

She took a candle from her bedside and held it in front of the mirror on her mantle. The reflection of the flickering light stretched back into infinity. But as much as she strained her eyes, there was no figure, no face, no man, no coffin. There was only a nothingness, so deep and endless that she had to look away.

She then flung open her window wide, as snowflakes fell gently to the ground below. The freezing wind made her shiver, but she felt so cold inside that she didn’t feel affected.

She reached for the letters, once tied with a neat blue ribbon, and lifted the first.

_Just say yes._

She held the paper to the flame of her candle and watched it burn.

 

After she had destroyed each letter individually and dropped it down onto the street below, she closed her window, blew out the candle, and made a decision.

She waited until one in the morning before leaving her room again. Her eyelids were heavy and she felt dazed. She didn’t notice her slippered feet shuffling down the stairs, or her thin, cold hand on the banister. She didn’t even truly have a destination. She scoured the house in her dream-like state, her face pale, until she found what she was looking for.

She didn’t know how she came to poison herself. She didn’t know how she came to be in Sonya’s room, choking and spluttering, rousing her cousin and begging her to fetch a doctor.

She didn’t remember drinking the diluted arsenic and feeling her throat burn.

 

She’d survived, and in many ways she was glad. Suicide would have been a final, devastating mistake. But the time for mistakes was over. It was time to use her head, not her heart.

Peter Kirilych returned to her sometime later. She was grateful, in a way, but also resentful of him. He had banished Anatole. But when he said those words, those kind, comforting words, she could not bring herself to reproach him.

‘Please… tell Prince Bolkonsky to forgive me.’

And she left the room smiling.

And suddenly Anatole was insignificant to her. He meant nothing, she realised. He was a bad mistake, but she would grow and she would move on. And so she left him a final, resentful thought, and he never crossed her mind again.

_I hope that you burn._

 

 

 


End file.
